Monday, February 6, 2012

Welcome to New Readers

Our little part of the econoblogoshpere has gotten a fair amount of publicity over the last few weeks.  I wanted to specifically thank Barry at the Big Picture blog, Calculated Risk, Business Insider and Seeking Alpha for highlighting some of the things we've written.  For those of you who are new, I wanted to say thanks for stopping by and provide a bit of an introduction.

First, in real life my name is Hale Stewart and I'm a tax attorney in Houston, Texas.  Bonddad is my online name.  As the name implies, I used to be a bond broker, but I haven't been in the business since 1999.  I've been writing about economics online since 2004.  I opened this blog in 2006 and have been writing every market day since.   I focus on the markets -- the charts and the data that will move them.  I also look at a lot of coincidental economic information and am currently deeply involved with the Bonddad Economic History Project, where I go back, year by year, and look at the US economy from 1950 onward. 

New Deal Democrat and I started writing together a few years ago.  Our first big collaborative piece was on the Great Depression (you can read the piece, here, here, here and here).  We became friends and I invited him to contribute here a few years ago.  NDD has recently done some excellent work on decoding ECRI's leading indicator (you can do a search in the upper left hand corner of the blog to see more).  He has does a ton of work really digging deeper into the economic numbers to explain what they mean.

SilverOz is an MPA specializing in local economic development and has worked in local economic development for a mid-sized midwestern county for over 10 years.  He has personally worked on/managed projects that have totaled over $500 million in direct investment into the county.  He writes when he can, but his professional and business commitments take up a great deal of his time.

Rumor has it that Invcitus -- who also writes at the Big Picture -- may be posting a few articles here soon as well.  I'd tell you more about him, but he would have to kill me if I revealed anymore.  

As the quote from Jon Stewart says, this blog is about data, devoid of emotion or influence. We're looking for where we are in the economic cycle and what will probably happen over the next "bit of time."   All of us are econo-nerds of the highest order -- and damn proud of it.  We hope you enjoy the blog, find it useful and come back often.